Page 18 of The Match Faker
“Nick?” Jasmine asks from a few feet away. I offered to pick her up, treat this like the real thing, but she was cagey about giving me her address and insisted we meet “somewhere neutral,” which turned out to be the benches across from the big clock in the Great Hall at Union Station. She wants to finalize the pages’ worth of details she texted me this week before we head to the engagement party across the street.
“Hey.” I lean in for a hug but stop myself before I can make contact. Shit. That’s probably weird. She shook my hand when we met but that was probably weirder. I wave instead. Unfortunately, that’s weirdest.
She inspects me, blatantly so, her mouth a squiggly line of disapproval.
“Do you have a specific grievance?” I ask, stuffing my hand in my pants’ pocket. “Or has the whole package turned you off?”
The disapproval frown deepens. “You said you’d wear a suit.” Her voice is higher than I remember, maybe from nerves.
I make a point of checking my clothing, plucking at the pant leg, opening the jacket to reveal the hot-pink paisley silk lining. “Oh, I’m sorry. What do you call these in your culture?”
That almost does it. She almost breaks. But at the last second, she slams down the hint of a smile making her lips wobble and rolls her eyes instead. “I just meant you’re not wearing a tie.”
“You didn’t say I had to.” I even checked and double-checked the list she sent in her fake dating information package.
Then I showed it to Rocco in the hopes of sharing a laugh about her level of organization. They glanced at it with an arched, well-groomed brow and told me she was probably too good for me.
Technically, they’re not wrong.
“I didn’t think I had to,” she says through gritted teeth. She brushes off my dandruffless shoulders and straightens my straight collar, her fingers grazing my collarbone and the dip at the base of my throat where my shirt is open and unbuttoned.
I pull away when she reaches for my hair, my skin prickling in anticipation of her nails against my scalp.
“Can you chill, please?”
She freezes with her hand still in the air. “I am chill,” she says in the least chill voice I have ever heard.
Gently grasping her wrist, I bring her hand back down to her side. Her skin is warm despite the cold she just came from. She’s wrapped up so tight in the same long coat she wore to the bar that I can’t see what she’s wearing beneath, other than the deep emerald green pants where the coat ends at her calves.
Union Station is both loud and hushed around us. It’s filled with the familiar noise of people running for commuter trains, announcements for departures, and families reuniting, echoing off the vaulted ceiling high above us. When I came to Toronto on my eighth-grade class trip, we arrived through this very station, our underpaid and overtired teachers trying to wrangle three classrooms’ worth of feral preteens with the kind of energy that only comes from a three-hour train ride. Even then, as I’dlooked up at the arched iron-and-glass roof, I’d known I would do anything to live in a place like this. A city whose train stations look like a place of worship rather than a transient space.
I step in closer, telling myself it’s so I can hear her better and not because I want to catch that honey-rich scent again. “Jazz,” I say. “Can I call you Jazz?”
She lifts her chin, imperious. “You may not.”
“Yeah, you sent me a twenty-point bulleted list on what I may or may not wear tonight, so I’m going to call you whatever I want.”
In heels, she’s almost as tall as me. When she huffs out an exasperated breath, it blows across my lips and chin. I turn my face away, just an inch, because she suddenly feels too close.
“Smell me,” I say.
“Excuse me?” She rears back, sounding horrified.
“Smell me.” I open my jacket, lift my arm. “Since you’re so worried about my personal care practices. You can check to make sure I’ve showered.”
“No.” She bats me away, scrunching her nose in disgust. “I believe you. You showered.”
“Damn right, I showered. My hygiene is impeccable.” I even got my hair cut for this.
“I’m sorry, okay,” she says, sounding not very sorry at all. “I’m a little nervous.”
“Wow. I never would have guessed,” I retort, deadpan. “It’s almost as if passing off a complete stranger as your boyfriend to make your ex-boyfriend jealous isn’t such an airtight idea.”
It’s meant to be a joke, the kind of sarcasm I’d drop into conversation with Rocco or Bernie or my siblings. Light teasing that people who are comfortable with each other can do, but when her face falls, I remember. She’s not Rocco or Bernie or my siblings and she’s certainly not comfortable with me.
She presses her glossy pink lips together. “I’m not.”
“Not what?”